T.X. Watson's Pre-EVENT blog

I had a terrifying dream last night. I'm having a lot of trouble getting stuff done today, so I think it might be that dream getting in the way. So, I'm going to try to get it out.
Darkness, the central theme of this dream, had a substance. It was made of stuff, not just the absence of light. And there were things in that stuff.

It wasn't like the darkness was intelligent, or anything. But it had a language, you could communicate with it, and I knew this -- everyone knew this -- because a single sentence in the language of darkness had leaked.

Everyone knew it because it was a useful sentence to know. I think you could use it as fuel or something. I know the guy I learned it from was using it to make his motorcycle work.

Weeks later, when there were people in every part of the developed world who had made themselves dependent upon this phrase, a website came out, a translator tool that would allow a person to learn new phrases, and find out what they meant. And it came with a sample phrase.

In a pitch dark room, with only the light of a computer monitor, I sat alone and spoke the test phrase into the mic. The darkness responded, not from the computer, but emerging out of the black, "I am watching you."

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That's when I woke up. But it was dark in the room I woke up in, so waking up wasn't very reassuring. Closing my eyes made it even darker.

I feel quite certain that the darkness itself wasn't sapient in my dream, but that some limited but powerful creature was using the darkness to leverage itself into a position of control over humanity. I've always been kind of afraid of the dark, but I think it's going to be a little bit worse for a while.